In answer, friendly Hermes opened his mouth and noised out his inspired tale to Bacchos eagerly listening :
“Dionysos, joy of mankind, shepherd of human life ! If sweet desire constrains you to hear these ancient stories, I will tell you the whole tale of Phaethon from beginning to end.
“Loudbooming Oceanos, girdled with the circle of the sky, who leads his water earth-encompassing round the turning point which he bathes, was joined in primeval wedlock with Tethys. The watery bridegroom begat Clymene, fairest of the Naiads, whom Tethys nursed on her wet breast, her youngest, a maiden with lovely arms. For her beauty Helios pined, Helios who spins round the twelvemonth lichtgang, and travels the sevenzone circuit garland-wise — Helios dispenser of fire was afflicted with another fire ! The torch of love was stronger than the blaze of his car and the shining of his rays, when over the bend of the reddened Ocean as he bathed his fiery form in the eastern waters, he beheld the maiden close by the way, while she swam naked and sported in her father’s waves. Her body gleamed in her bath, she was one like the full Moon reflected in the evening waters, when she has filled the compass of her twin horns with light. Half-seen, unshod, the girl stood in the waves shooting the rosy shafts from her cheeks at Helios ; her shape was outlined in the waters, no stomacher hid her maiden bosom, but the glowing circle of her round silvery breasts illuminated the stream.
“Her father united the girl to the heavenly charioteer. The lightfoot Seasons acclaimed Clywere the real planets. Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and also the sun and moon. Thus the Zodiac is called seven-zoned. Note that they did not regard the Earth as a planet, and did not know the planets Uranus and Neptunet P u . mene’s bridal with Helios Lightbringer, the Naiad Nymphs danced around ; in a watery bridal-bower the fruitful maiden was wedded in a flaming union, and received the hot bridegroom into her cool arms. The light that shone on that bridal bed came from the starry train ; and the star of Cypris, Lucifer, herald of the union, wove a bridal song. Instead of the wedding torch, Selene sent her beams to attend the wedding. The Hesperides raised the joy-cry, and Oceanos beside his bride Tethys sounded his song with all the fountains of his throat.
“Then Clymene’s womb swelled in that fruitful union, and when the birth ripened she brought forth a baby son divine and brilliant with light. At the boy’s birth his father’s ether saluted him with song ; as he sprang from the childbed, the daughters of Oceanos cleansed him, Clymene’s son, in his grandsire’s waters, and wrapt him in swaddlings. The stars in shining movement leapt into the stream of Oceanos which they knew so well, and surrounded the boy, with Selene our Lady of labour, sending forth her sparkling gleams. Helios gave his son his own name, as well suited the testimony of his form ; for upon the boy’s shining face was visible the father’s inborn radiance.
“Often in the course of the boy’s training Oceanos would have a pretty game, lifting Phaethon on his midbelly and letting him drop down ; he would throw the boy high in the air, rolling over and over moving in a high path as quick as the wandering wind, and catch him again on his arm ; then he would shoot him up again, and the boy would avoid the ready hand of Oceanos, and turn a somersault round and round till he splashed into the dark waters, prophet of his own death. The old man groaned when he saw it, recognizing the divine oracle, and hid all in prudent silence, that he might not tear the happy heart of Clymene the loving mother by foretelling the cruel threads of Phaethon’s Fate.
“So the boy, hardly grown up, and still with no down on his lip, sometimes frequented his mother Clymene’s house, sometimes travelled even to the meadows of Thrinacia, where he would often visit and stay with Lampetie, tending cattle and sheep . . . There he would long for his father the charioteer divine ; made a wooden axle with skilful joinery, fitted on a sort of round wheel for his imitation car, fashioned yoke-straps, took three light withies from the flowering garden and plaited them into a lash, put unheard-of bridles on four young rams. Then he made a clever imitation of the morning star round like a wheel, out of a bunch of white flowers, and fixed it in front of his spokewheeled waggon to show the shape of the star Lucifer. He set burning torches standing about his hair on every side, and mimicked his father with fictitious rays as he drove round and round the coast of the seagirt isle.
“But when he grew up into the fair bloom of youth, he often touched his father’s fire, lifted with his little hand the hot yokestraps and the starry whip, busied himself with the wheel, stroked the horses’ coats with snow-white hands — and so the playful boy enjoyed himself. With his right hand he touched the fireshotten bridle, mad with longing to manage the horses. Seated on his father’s knees, he shed imploring tears, and begged for a run with the fiery chariot and heavenly horses. His father said no, but he only begged and prayed all the more with gracious pleading. Then the father said in affectionate words to his young son in the highfaring car ;
“Dear son of Helios, dear grandson of Oceanos, ask me another boon ; what have you to do with the chariot of the sky ? Let alone the course of horsemanship. You cannot attain it, for you cannot guide my car — I can hardly drive it myself ! Furious Ares never armed him with flaming thunderbolt, but he blares his tune with a trumpet, not with thunder. Hephaistos never collects his father’s clouds ; he is not called Cloudgatherer like Cronion, but hammers his iron anvil in the forge, and pours artificial blasts of artificial wind. Apollo has a winged swan, not a running horse. Hermes keeps his rod and wears not his father’s aegis, lifts not his father’s fiery lightning. But you will say — “He gave Zagreus the flash of the thunderbolt.” Yes, Zagreus held the thunderbolt, and came to his death ! Take good care, my child, that you too suffer not woes like his.
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